Silenced

columns

October 10, 2006

She might have moved to the US, but ex-Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali can still pull in headlines. Today’s Volkskrant includes a bizarre article by two supporters, Leiden professor Afshin Ellian and writer Leon de Winter.

They claim Hirsi Ali was literally ‘kidnapped’ by the government after Theo van Gogh’s murder. Stopped from attending the funeral because of the risk to others, Hirsi Ali was surrounded by security experts. These experts, say Ellian and De Winter, banned her from using her mobile phone and email in case her whereabouts could be traced – which they say implies that KPN had been infiltrated at the highest level by Islamic extremists. She was flown to the US and moved from motel to motel. Using the internet was forbidden, even reading the Economist was frowned on. Hirsi Ali, an elected MP, the article concludes, was demoralised, isolated and silenced by justice minister Piet Hein Donner.